Apple has reportedly got Warner Music Group to sign on to a deal that would give Apple secured rights for publishing and recorded music. This is another traction building move by Apple, leading into their June 10th developer conference, WWDC, where they'll likely unveil iRadio—their streaming music service that will rival Spotify and Pandora.
According to the New York Times, record labels are looking for a bigger piece of the pie: instead of only getting 4 percent in licensing fees like they do with Pandora, they're looking to get as high as 10 percent from iRadio. Apple still needs Sony Music to complete their deal, along with wrapping the remaining numbers from a deal with Universal, where they only secured recorded music rights.
iRadio will reportedly be free and ad-supported. If it seems strange that Apple is rushing to get this service out of the gate, it's not without reason. Google is launching their service, All Access, in just a few weeks, and their service could be on iOS even before Apple's very own.
Time is of the essence.
